Are the dog days of summer here to stay at LPSG? A critical mass has disappeared it seems. Did popularity breed contempt?

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You are incredibly right. From those I have spoken to, they are tired of inane threads being created on a hourly basis and members who whine a great deal about nonsense, and expect their egos to be fed or they get bitchy. I think the site was (well not better)... different once upon a time and those who were here, have seen this, and may miss the way it was.

People who have been here for a shorter period of time may not see it just yet, but if they stay, they will likely begin to notice it has changed from when they joined.

Gold Member

There's no time like the present since the grass is always greener but you get nothing for free because you look like somebody shot at and missed, shit at and hit as proof of the pudding is in the eating so I'll tickle your fancy until you spin like a top but don't turn the tables so you can dance the night away.

Gold Member

There's no time like the present since the grass is always greener but you get nothing for free because you look like somebody shot at and missed, shit at and hit as proof of the pudding is in the eating so I'll tickle your fancy until you spin like a top but don't turn the tables so you can dance the night away.

I think criticism should be more specific. You'll see over and over again innuendo but no actual "je t'accuse!!! Vous, etes .... ". Why?

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I'm not sure it's a finger-pointing issue in the first place.

What's changed is the sheer size of the membership. Back when the place had relatively few members, it was a village community - everyone knowing everyone else and having time to care for each other.

By the time I arrived here, LPSG was already a fairly bustling town, whose inhabitants still passed the time of day and looked out for one another.. but arguably not to the extent of the previous generation(s) of posters here.

Within the past year, the size of the membership has skyrocketed, though. It's not so much a matter that LPSG has now developed into part of the (virtual) urban sprawl, where people have still less time for another, but the fact that this change has been so sudden and has taken some members rather by surprise.

Longer posts are hard to find these days; it's the land of the one-line response here for the most part now. Of which I'm as guilty as anyone else. The village mentality, where there are relatively few members and threads, so that you're willing to sit down and converse at length, may frequently appear to have been lost here entirely. The "swift-greeting-to-the-crowd-of-people-you-barely-know" mentality is much more the order of the day.

Has there been a 'dumbing down' as a result of the rise of the 'one-line' mentality? Of course, any answer to that question will be purely subjective. However, the number of threads started here these days which wouldn't even have constituted 'threads' in the past is definitely noticeable to me. These are the 'threads' whose opening post is simply a link; with no commentary beyond the catchpenny thread title, and with no context given... merely someone thinking "nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, I found this on the internet, and now you're all gonna see it too."

With a lack of 'community spirit' comes a lack of caring, too. This is a support group, at least in name; yet the amount of unkind, personal comments made about people's appearance, etc. these days far surpasses what has been seen in the past. Wantonly cruel mockery for no reason other than that the poster is in a pissy mood or terminally dead to notions of sensitivity, and because they can get away with such things amid the urban sprawl, where hundreds of people are posting hundreds of things all the time; things that would have been picked up on and challenged much more precisely and comprehensively in the past, when fewer posts were being made within a closer-knit community.

Of course, one can run with Pecker's point about "the grass being greener"; and one of the things that makes our human condition so interesting is that we are constantly in a state of flux and reinvention. However, people generally feel a lot less uncomfortable and open to such change when its pace is slow... and that isn't what's happened at LPSG... the move from rural contemplation to urban immediacy has been swift, leaving some members wondering quite where the 'good old times' disappeared to.

Nostalgia, to be sure, and as such, rather like life in general. But that's no reason simply to ignore the fact that those sentiments --- which have prompted some to leave; others to post a lot less; and others to have fractured into virtual sub-communities who only interpost among themselves here --- are felt keenly and expressed behind the scenes, with little or no prompting, by a number of posters on a fairly regular basis.

As Jeff said... there's nothing 'bad' about LPSG per se now.. it's just changed a lot in a short space of time.. and there are quite a few people who have been left reeling by that, especially those who have at one time or another treated LPSG almost as a 'second home' in which to escape the troubles of their everyday life.

Of course, the 'count to 25,000' thread falls into a class of its own, and would have to be classed as mind-numbingly inane and suicide-inducingly monotonous in any community.

Gold Member

The only problem with that, MB is the fact that everyone seems to have a different definition of fun.

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I don't see how that is a problem - I have fun with the people who share my sense of humour.. those that don't can post around me as I post around them. There's nothing going on here that forces ay of us to read and interact with everyone else.

Gold Member

You are incredibly right. From those I have spoken to, they are tired of inane threads being created on a hourly basis and members who whine a great deal about nonsense, and expect their egos to be fed or they get bitchy. I think the site was (well not better)... different once upon a time and those who were here, have seen this, and may miss the way it was.

People who have been here for a shorter period of time may not see it just yet, but if they stay, they will likely begin to notice it has changed from when they joined.

IT's not a bad place, it's just not what it was.

EDIT: Novice, please shower.... I can smell you in Canada.

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I've been here 6 months and I have noticed a change. I was hoping it was only due to it being summer. All the school kids with nothing else to do fooling on here. Then again, maybe that's not it. Definitely a lot of trolls here in the last two months. A lot of arguing now, and not as much supportive conversation. Just my 2 cents.

and others to have fractured into virtual sub-communities who only interpost among themselves here

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This is precisely what the last few months have looked like, and I say why not? The growth of a community allows it to splinter off into divisions, whether it's online, or in a bricks&mortar environment. That's why my small town has little diversity (unfortunately), as those who may not fit into the so-called Canadian version of 'normal' often move to Toronto where their version of 'normal' is well represented in sheer numbers.

Personally, I've found a group of friends that I respect and admire(Snoozan, Mercurial Bliss, DC Deep, Big Dirg, pretty much anyone that's posted to this thread, etc.) so I know that if I invest my hour or two online with them, in the end it will feel like time well spent. This means that I might miss out on interesting discussions elsewhere, but it also means that I won't get stuck in any 'count to 25,000' threads.

I don't see how that is a problem - I have fun with the people who share my sense of humour.. those that don't can post around me as I post around them. There's nothing going on here that forces ay of us to read and interact with everyone else.

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Well, I will try to explain it for you, MB. My thoughts are simple as I was never one to post lengthy replies. You are right. A person can post around others quite easily. However, try coming to the site after being offline for 3 hours and have to sort through 104 threads (happened yesterday). 45 of them being new, and only two of them offer any sort of intellectual release. Yes, you can ignore people and posts, but having to sort through each thread in order to know what is going on is kind of a pain in the ass.

In terms of fun, your definition of fun is having fleshpiles and random sexual banter ( as is mine and others here) However, some people think having fun is posting one word in a thread. Others enjoy posting voice clips, while others still enjoy discussing politics. While this isn't a very good argument, think about this. Let's say you enjoy talking about peanuts and you posted a thread abou peanuts last night. When you wake up, there is 50 pages of threads, and because there is so many random threads about dogs, no one posted on your peanut thread.

In my defense, I know it's not a very good arguement, but someone else will get what I am saying and say it properly.

I've been here 6 months and I have noticed a change. I was hoping it was only due to it being summer. All the school kids with nothing else to do fooling on here. Then again, maybe that's not it. Definitely a lot of trolls here in the last two months. A lot of arguing now, and not as much supportive conversation. Just my 2 cents.

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A wise 2 cents it was, viking1. Check the exchange rate, felt like it was worth 2$.:biggrin1: